Better integrating the talents of the next generation

Feb 10, 2014 @ 12:00 am

Runtime: 2:31

The financial advice industry should do more to lure newcomers to the industry, according to Brian Nelson of National Financial, by raising awareness of what it has to offer and strengthening relationships with college programs.

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Video Transcript

There are few things I think that are keeping college
graduates away from our industry. And I think the first
is probably general awareness around what our industry is and
what the industry has to offer. And I think the
second aspect of that is really the perception of the
people that are aware of our industry and just understanding
how they can take advantage of what our industry has
to offer to really see themselves in a successful long-term
career. So I think that applies very specifically more and
not necessarily for Gen X but to Gen Y, because,
as we know, Gen Y is more specifically focused on
the importance of a career and being able to make
a difference and understand what it is that they can
do. So I think they have to be able to
see themselves in a position that gets them to where
they want to be too as well. So that's probably,
you know, two of the most selling points there. I
think the final point is that we really haven't done
enough as an industry to build awareness from a college
perspective in terms of our relationships that we have with
the universities and colleges that offer financial planning program. So
I think it's imperative that as an industry we have
a much more broad program that outreaches to these colleges
to build awareness of, first of all, the opportunities and
how they can take advantage of them with their graduates.
We definitely see that the industry is moving to focus
more on understanding how the linkage between succession planning and
attracting next generation talent can work together to form successful
advisory relationships. We think that there are few things that
are keyed to that. But one of the other things
that we think is important in our industry is not
to try to silo each issue that comes out. So
there's Gen X, Gen Y talent acquisition. There is, you
know, the acquisition of new clients obviously. There is the
succession planning focused that a lot of people have. And
then there's also focusing on engaging to female client, which
is something that we're very focused on. But it's really
stitching that whole story together. So we know that the
next generation talent can help the baby boom generation advisers
better focus their practices and take their practices to the
next level. But they can also better understand how to
integrate and work with some of those beneficiaries of their
existing clients. So we think that theme, in that opportunity
is very specific, but yet, it's something that shouldn't be
silo. So as we look to speak to that, we
think that a lot of those programs should be tied
together in terms of being one theme and working in
the next generation for talent.